... Carmen knew what it was; but the brave little woman was not afraid
of it. Many a time before she had met it face to face, in Havanese
summers; she knew how to wrestle with it; she had torn Feliu's life
away from its yellow clutch, after one of those long struggles that
strain even the strength of love. Now she feared mostly for Chita.
She had ordered the girl under no circumstances to approach the cabin.
Julien felt that blankets had been heaped upon him,--that some gentle
hand was bathing his scorching face with vinegar and water. Vaguely
also there came to him the idea that it was night. He saw the
shadow-shape of a woman moving against the red light upon the wall;--he
saw there was a lamp burning.
Then the delirium seized him: he moaned, sobbed, cried like a
child,--talked wildly at intervals in French, in English, in Spanish.
--"Mentira!--you could not be her mother ... Still, if you were--And
she must not come in here,--jamais! ... Carmen, did you know
Adele,--Adele Florane? So like her,--so like,--God only knows how
like! ... Perhaps I think I know;--but I do not--do not know justly,
fully--how like! ... Si! si!--es el vomito!--yo lo conozco, Carmen! ...
She must not die twice ... I died twice ... I am going to die again.
She only once. Till the heavens be no more she will not rise ... Moi,
au contraire, il faut que je me leve toujours! They need me so
much;--the slate is always full; the bell will never stop. They will
ring that bell for me when I am dead ... So will I rise
again!--resurgam! ... How could I save him?--could not save myself. It
was a bad case,--at seventy years! ... There! Qui ca?" ...
He saw Laroussel again,--reaching out a hand to him through a whirl of
red smoke. He tried to grasp it, and could not ... "N'importe, mon
ami," said Laroussel,--"tu vas la voir bientot." Who was he to see
soon?--"qui done, Laroussel?" But Laroussel did not answer. Through
the red mist he seemed to smile;--then passed.
For some hours Carmen had trusted she could save her
patient,--desperate as the case appeared to be. His was one of those
rapid and violent attacks, such as often despatch their victims in a
single day. In the Cuban hospitals she had seen many and many terrible
examples: strong young men,--soldiers fresh from Spain,--carried
panting to the fever wards at sunrise; carried to the cemeteries at
sunset. Even troopers riddled with revolutionary bullets had lingered
longer ... Still, she had believed she might save Julien's life: the
burning forehead once began to bead, the burning hands grew moist.
But now the wind was moaning;--the air had become lighter, thinner,
cooler. A stone was gathering in the east; and to the fever-stricken
man the change meant death ... Impossible to bring the priest of the
Caminada now; and there was no other within a day's sail. She could
only pray; she had lost all hope in her own power to save.
Still the sick man raved; but he talked to himself at longer intervals,
and with longer pauses between his words;--his voice was growing more
feeble, his speech more incoherent. His thought vacillated and
distorted, like flame in a wind.
Weirdly the past became confounded with the present; impressions of
sight and of sound interlinked in fastastic affinity,--the face of
Chita Viosca, the murmur of the rising storm. Then flickers of
spectral lightning passed through his eyes, through his brain, with
every throb of the burning arteries; then utter darkness came,--a
darkness that surged and moaned, as the circumfluence of a shadowed
sea. And through and over the moaning pealed one multitudinous human
cry, one hideous interblending of shoutings and shriekings ... A
woman's hand was locked in his own ... "Tighter," he muttered, "tighter
still, darling! hold as long as you can!" It was the tenth night of
August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six ...
--"Cheri!"
Again the mysterious whisper startled him to consciousness,--the dim
knowledge of a room filled with ruby colored light,--and the sharp odor
of vinegar. The house swung round slowly;--the crimson flame of the
lamp lengthened and broadened by turns;--then everything turned dizzily
fast,--whirled as if spinning in a vortex ... Nausea unutterable; and a
frightful anguish as of teeth devouring him within,--tearing more and
more furiously at his breast. Then one atrocious wrenching, rending,
burning,--and the gush of blood burst from lips and nostrils in a
smothering deluge. Again the vision of lightnings, the swaying, and
the darkness of long ago. "Quick!--quick!--hold fast to the table,
Adele!--never let go!" ...
... Up,--up,--up!--what! higher yet? Up to the red sky! Red--black-red
... heated iron when its vermilion dies. So, too, the frightful flood!
And noiseless. Noiseless because heavy, clammy,--thick, warm,
sickening--blood? Well might the land quake for the weight of such a
tide!--Why did Adele speak Spanish? Who prayed for him? ...
--"Alma de Cristo santisima santificame!
"Sangre de Cristo, embriagame!
"O buen Jesus, oye me!" ...
Out of the darkness into--such a light! An azure haze! Ah!--the
delicious frost! ... All the streets were filled with the sweet blue
mist ... Voiceless the City and white;--crooked and weed grown its
narrow ways! ... Old streets of tombs, these ... Eh! How odd a
custom!--a Night-bell at every door. Yes, of course!--a
night-bell!--the Dead are Physicians of Souls: they may be summoned
only by night,--called up from the darkness and silence ... Yet
she?--might he not dare to ring for her even by day? ........ Strange
he had deemed it day!--why, it was black, starless ... And it was
growing queerly cold ...... How should he ever find her now? It was
so black ... so cold! ...
--"Cheri!"
All the dwelling quivered with the mighty whisper.
Outside, the great oaks were trembling to their roots;--all the shore
shook and blanched before the calling of the sea.
And Carmen, kneeling at the feet of the dead, cried out, alone in the
night:--
--"O Jesus misericordioso!--tened compasion de el!"